Meet the 66 top employers in the Dayton region. How big are they?

The desire to make this community the best it can possibly be is what drove the Dayton Daily News to launch The Path Forward, which is a focused effort on finding solutions to the region’s most important problems.

One of those major issues is the economy.

Part of the solution is leveraging what is working, and there are plenty of success stories. Our region has gained headquarters like Verso Corp. in Miamisburg and NDC Technologies in Huber Heights.

We’ve won new auto industry supply companies, including Fuyao Glass America, which employs 2,300 people in the former General Motors plant in Moraine and has plans to add 700 more in the next three years.

The region’s largest employer and linchpin of aerospace and defense industry economic development efforts is Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which employs 27,500 people, boasts an annual payroll of $2.23 billion and indirectly creates an estimated 34,560 additional jobs, according to the development coalition.

Although Premier Health decided to close Good Samaritan Hospital in northwest Dayton, health care job growth in general is red-hot. CareSource is adding jobs in downtown Dayton, and the major hospital systems — Premier and Kettering Health Network – are expanding their main campuses and satellite operations across the region.

Here’s a look at which employers provide the most jobs to the Dayton region, which includes Montgomery and 13 surrounding counties. Data come from Dayton Development Coalition, Salesforce and Dun and Bradstreet and includes the most recent data reported to collecting entity.

These numbers were collected earlier this year and so may differ from numbers provided by companies after the data was collected.